


Deeper Wounds

by ShadowedTime



Category: Date A Bullet, Date A Live
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Battle, Character Study, Ficlet, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowedTime/pseuds/ShadowedTime
Summary: Injured in battle against the White Queen and humiliated by her defeat, Tsuan attempts to pull herself together. Unfortunately, some wounds run deeper than the flesh.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Deeper Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of appreciation for Tsuan and Yui.

Everything hurt.

From head to toe, Tsuan’s body ached. Blood leaked from various wounds littered across her body, and she could taste iron in the back of her throat. As she took a deep, shuddering breath, she heard rattling and wheezing in her chest, and concluded that a few of her ribs had probably caved in.

Shutting her eyes again, Tsuan felt drowse set in. Her head felt like a lead weight, and as she was about to allow herself to slip back into unconsciousness, everything came back.

Ice spread out across her chest and midsection as she abruptly sat up. Courtesy of Brinicle, the spike of pain that shot through her was numbed.

“Damnit,” Tsuan growled, looking down at her broken and mangled body. Ice had begun to creep over her fresher wounds, numbing her bruises and halting bleeding, but they were hardly the things that were bothering Tsuan. Her brain lagged for a moment, likely due to the massive beating she had received, before it came back to her, all too visceral.

* * *

_Raising Lailaps, Tsuan rushed in with incredible speed. Kurumi had fallen back, noticing the way Tsuan locked onto White Kurumi as her target._

_Tsuan’s dogged focus made Rook flinch. The fire in her eyes and the firm set of her jaw only emphasising her single-mindedness. The White Queen, however, was entirely focused on Kurumi._

_Perfect._

_Tsuan took flight. Kicking off from the ground, she charged up what was sure to be a devastating swing, aimed right at the Queen’s head. Alarms were going off in Tsuan’s head, however. The White Queen had already shown a snippet of impressive power, and the fact that she wasn’t even paying attention to Tsuan was a stupid move._

_But one that pissed her off._

_Greatly._

_Tsuan let out a huff as she swung Lailaps, the hammer side coming down in a crushing blow, true to target. The White Queen didn’t flinch, even as the unwieldy weapon came down against her cap._

_Tsuan expected to feel that crunch she was so used to. The weight of her weapon coming down on a Quasi-Spirit and crushing them, just like a biscuit. But that feeling never came._

_“Moznaim.”_

_Lailaps’ aim suddenly turned. Laughing in the face of nature’s laws, Tsuan’s attack instead hit its owner square in the abdomen, releasing every ounce of brute force into her body. Her eyes widened as pain bloomed across every inch of her body._

_The impact sent her flying._

* * *

Tsuan placed a hand over her midsection, wincing at the recollection of the recent memory. She hadn’t been at all prepared for such a broken attack. She had been tensed for retaliation, assuming that the strange girl would fire a shot in her direction, or swing her sabre to counter her Lailaps. But she had done neither, and in fact, didn’t even give Tsuan so much as a sidelong glance.

The cold of the ice paled in comparison to the hot anger that surged through her body.

“How dare she…” Tsuan muttered. Her voice was quiet, barely hiding her rage, but the malice in it would have surprised herself if she weren’t so fucking _mad._

Looking aside to regard Lailaps laying on the ground, Tsuan briefly took the time to survey the considerable rut her body’s impact had made in the ground. It ran for roughly fifty metres, she guessed.

Barely a glance sent her flying _this_ far and beat her up _this_ badly. Tsuan was about as appalled as she were pissed off. Picking herself up with her teeth tightly grit, she stood, and began to hobble over to her discarded Unsigned Angel, wanting to feel the weight of the warhammer/battle axe hybrid in her hands again, and imagine the sensation of driving it into the White Queen’s skull. Multiple times.

Tsuan had pride, she could admit that. She didn’t know quite what attack the White Queen hit her with, but she could only assume she had somehow managed to reverse her _own_ attack back into her.

…

Her heart skipped a beat knowing that her own assault dealt this much damage. It was liberating, and she would be prouder if she wasn’t quite so sore and annoyed. It would have been nicer if her hit actually landed on her target, though.

An infamous Quasi-Spirit known for killing one hundred other Quasi-Spirits, a disciple of the Fifth Region’s Dominion. It was also humiliating to know that she was bested with such ease, and with such a lack of care and respect. The White Queen never properly addressed her, not even really _look_ at her once.

As she limped, her mind raced.

Was she not good enough? Had the legend of Biscuit Smasher not reached Binah yet? Maybe that was it… No, she had shown her prowess against Rook, so the Queen must’ve known that she wasn’t a small fry, a weakling. Unless she knew that she had held her own against Rook and _still_ didn’t care… which was still infuriating. Status didn’t matter much to Tsuan, but what _did_ matter to her was constantly improving her fighting ability, and meeting opponents that could match her so she could learn from them, to better herself! This White Kurumi probably didn’t care enough to humour her, but why not? There was a level of respect in fights, a mutual acknowledgement of strength that was made at the first moment of eye contact, and the last. There was none of that! None at all!

It was like insulting a craft, and Tsuan scrunched her nose in response to her own thoughts.

“Disrespectful.” Tsuan grunted, as if that revelation was going to solve anything. Judging from the silence around her, spare from the crunching of her feet against debris and the crackling of ice around her midsection, all signs of a fight had died down. Upon looking around to confirm, there was nothing left at all, no trace of Kurumi, the White Queen, Rook, Mayuka or Hibiki.

…The White Queen left without even trying to finish her off! Did this mean Kurumi lost? Surely she wouldn’t be left here if Kurumi won and retreated with Hibiki…

“She better not be dead,” she hissed to herself, finally closing in on Lailaps. She coughed, and spat out a globule of blood onto the ground beside her. “We have a fight to finish…”

Tsuan tripped once over her own feet, and then again.

She took one more step before she collapsed in a heap. Her hand closed around Lailaps, and she exhaled as the oppressive weight pressing down on her body seemed to double. Her broken body refused to move, but as the edges of her vision dimmed, she found that she didn’t care. She would get her revenge, but it would certainly not be today. 

Unless she died here.

That prospect didn’t scare Tsuan in the slightest. She had been beaten harder than this and recovered. Her fight against Kurumi was one battle that she would forever remember for dealing so much damage and igniting so much passion within her, and that thought alone would save her from dying out here and now. She was sure of it.

And so she passed out, with the ghost of a smile on her face.

* * *

Shoes walked over the debris and rubble. Making no sound, it gave the illusion that the newcomer was gliding over the earth.

She came to a stop by Tsuan’s unconscious form. Noting her battered state, and her hands tightly clutching her Unsigned Angel in some form of a last stand, Yui Sagakure quickly ran through the best way to pick her up without damaging her too much.

Yui had witnessed the entire battle, but it had taken her a while to gather all the necessary intelligence and report back to the Dominion, Mizuha Banouin and her tutor Rinemu Kirari. She had informed them of Kurumi’s failure, and only realised later that she had forgotten all about Tsuan.

If she had the capacity to feel it, Yui would have felt amused over the change in dynamic between them. Tsuan had killed one of her many other selves back during the killing game in Malkuth, and the dichotomy was comedic in a way.

Alas, Yui felt nothing. She instead reached down, and carefully rolled Tsuan over onto her back. She heard her groan, and reached over to try and pry her fingers from around Lailaps. Her grip was far too tight, however, and Yui gave up the moment she began.

She settled on lifting Tsuan up bridal style, ensuring she didn’t let her sag too much in her arms nor stretch her in a way that would aggravate her wounds.

As Yui began her journey back to Yesod’s more populated area, she caught a glimpse of Tsuan’s smile. It didn’t make sense for her to be looking so content in such a battered state.

But it was oddly fitting.

Yui didn’t realise that she was copying the expression herself on the way back, her lips pulled up in the slightest of smirks.


End file.
